Renovating an Old House Article - "A Turn-of-the-Century Passion"

by Bonnie Maher

This article is an updated version of one originally published in Victorian Homes Magazine.

As I admitted in an earlier article, published in VICTORIAN HOMES Magazine in 1991, even as a young girl I’ve always loved old things—old homes, old furniture, old dishes, and yes, even old people.  As a teenager, I collected old furniture for my hope chest and hoped that someday I would find an old house.  I salvaged articles that no one else wanted.  Things put on the curb on trash day, things I’d find at garage sales and couldn’t pass up, and even things found in the out buildings of relatives’ farms somehow found their way into my parent’s basement.   Things given to me by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were especially important to me since they represented parts of my own history.  By the time I married—and I married quite young--I had more things stored in their basement than my parents had.  The old furniture, dishes and articles were easy to come by in those days—the days before Home and Garden Television.  I think it was this passion for collecting that gave me a passion for an old house, my dream home—someplace worthy of all the treasurers I’d collected.  However, the old house didn’t come as easily as the “treasures” I’d collected.  One mobile home, a story-and-a-half ranch, and seventeen years later, my dream was realized. 

Above: A view of the front parlor during ceiling re-plastering. Below: The restored parlor today.

My husband Bill and I have always shared an interest in old houses.  Along with this interest our love for touring historical homes was certainly the focus of many of our travels.  Our two daughters, Darcy and Danielle, did not always share our love for old houses.  I can recall times when we’d be on a family trip and stop to tour a museum home.  The girls would choose to sit in the car as an alternative to touring “another musty-smelling old house.”

Here in Stevens Point, we would be saddened when we’d see old houses being razed in the name of progress.  We felt that if this continued our children and grandchildren would never know the beauty, charm, and history that was once present in our city. Bill and I decided to do our part—if only to save just one old house.

We searched for nearly two years for a house that was close to its original condition.  On a November day in 1986 our search ended.  The realtor’s data sheet urged, “This one’s worth putting your efforts into,” and we agreed.  The house had been described in the Portage County Gazette (Nov. 27, 1901) as “a two story, pretentious frame structure, of the Queen Anne style, with basement under all.  It contains 12 rooms, besides closets, with bath room on first floor and toilet room above.  The rooms are pleasant and nicely arranged.”  We found all that and more.  A third floor that we were told was intended to have been a ballroom, leaded glass windows, a gorgeous brass and iron fireplace with matching fireplace tools, golden oak woodwork, stair step windows, and more were not even mentioned in the 1901 newspaper article.  Even better all this was situated on over three city lots.  We could hardly believe such a beauty still existed in Stevens Point.  And so began the “effort” in the form of backbreaking, arm-tiring hard work, late hours, and a strained savings account and credit line to restore the J.L. Jensen House.

daughters climbed into the truck and recovered each finial from the heap of debris.  I refinished the finials, and the roofers put them back in their rightful places.

In our 19 years in this house, our efforts have always been to restore, not remodel, the house.  We had been reading and researching the restoration of old houses for years.  Most importantly, we have been blessed with the advice of my father, Carl Pawelski, who in earlier years had done renovation work in several of the older homes in this city.  His advice on “how to” was and is priceless.

We worked extremely hard for several months after we purchased the home.  While the professionals were doing the jobs Bill and I could not do on our own, we repaired windows, refitted doors, painted and varnished woodwork, rewired turn-of-the century light fixtures, and rebuilt carriage doors on the garage.

With the help of a very capable mason, our two Queen Anne-style chimneys again corbelled out and in as they had in an old photo of the house.  The mason also helped us take apart our brass and iron fireplace so it could be relined.  Carpenters who appreciate and love old houses helped to restore the three porches to the likeness of the original porches as seen in the old photos.

In the midst of all this, I began choosing wallpapers.  We were fortunate that the golden oak doors, woodwork, and fireplace on the first floor needed only a washing and polishing so the wallpapering could begin.  With samples of original wallpapers found beneath layers and the help of my mother, Betty Pawelski, who has an excellent eye for Victorian patterns, we tried to recreate the Victorian ambience.  I hauled home tons of wallpaper books.  We searched for appropriate companion patterns for the areas above and below the picture rail.  So far we have hung 320 rolls of wallpaper.  Half of these rolls went into our third floor project which included converting what would have been the ballroom into two three room suites.  Our longest single piece—17' 1" in length—hangs in the maid’s stairwell.  (Unfortunately, a maid did not come with the house.)

It was during the stripping of the old wallpaper that our house told its story.  We uncovered writing on the plaster telling the name of a person who hung wallpaper in the parlor in 1956.  We found traces in plaster that indicated that another door had once served as an entrance into that parlor.  I couldn’t wait till the messy re-plastering and wallpapering was done so we could pull up the carpeting and see what was underneath.  Another story emerged.  On the dining room floor we found a button which the first owners of the house would have rung for the servants to bring in the next course.  It’s not functioning now, but the button is still there, and who knows?